Regional Electric-Power Systems Planning and Carbon Dioxide Emissions Management under Uncertainty

In this study, an interval two-stage integer programming model is formulated for planning electric-power systems and managing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions under uncertainty. The developed model can reflect dynamic, interactive, and uncertain characteristics of regional energy systems. Besides, the model can be used for answering questions related to types, times, demands and mitigations of energy systems planning practices, with the objective of minimizing system cost over a long-time planning horizon. The developed model is also applied to a case study of planning CO2-emission mitigation for an electric-power system that involves fossil-fueled and renewable energy sources. Solutions can help generate electricity-generation schemes and capacity-expansion plans under different CO2-mitigation options and electricity-demand levels. Different CO2-emission management policies corresponding to different renewable energy development plans are analyzed. A high system cost will increase renewable energy supply and reduce CO2 emission, while a desire for a low cost will run into risks of a high energy deficiency and a high CO2 emission

Cultural Perspective on Parenting, Trait Emotional Intelligence and Mental Health in Taiwanese Children

The current study aims to clarify the associations as well as the pathways through which parenting and children's emotional intelligence (EI) may influence children's mental health with a cross-sectional sample of 675 school pupils (fourth grade, mean age = 10.4 years, 310 boy, 356 girls and 9 unidentified) in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression and path analyses were used to examine the relationships between parenting styles, children's trait EI, and their psychological symptoms, with children's psychological symptoms as the dependent variable. The results showed that authoritative parenting was positively associated with children‟s trait EI, which in turn had a negative effect on children‟s psychological symptoms, whereas authoritarian and Chinese-specific parenting styles had direct negative effect on children‟s psychological symptoms. These findings shed light on the pathways of the interrelations between different parenting styles, children's trait EI, and psychological symptoms, providing theoretical as well as practical implications for children's emotional development and mental health

Identification of differentially expressed genes induced by Bamboo mosaic virus infection in Nicotiana benthamiana by cDNA-amplified fragment length polymorphism

Background: The genes of plants can be up- or down-regulated during viral infection to influence the replication of viruses. Identification of these differentially expressed genes could shed light on the defense systems employed by plants and the mechanisms involved in the adaption of viruses to plant cells. Differential gene expression in Nicotiana benthamiana plants in response to infection with Bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV) was revealed using cDNA-amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Results: Following inoculation with BaMV, N. benthamiana displayed differential gene expression in response to the infection. Isolation, cloning, and sequencing analysis using cDNA-AFLP furnished 90 cDNA fragments with eight pairs of selective primers. Fifteen randomly selected genes were used for a combined virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) knockdown experiment, using BaMV infection to investigate the roles played by these genes during viral infection, specifically addressing the means by which these genes influence the accumulation of BaMV protein. Nine of the 15 genes showed either a positive or a negative influence on the accumulation of BaMV protein. Six knockdown plants showed an increase in the accumulation of BaMV, suggesting that they played a role in the resistance to viral infection, while three plants showed a reduction in coat protein, indicating a positive influence on the accumulation of BaMV in plants. An interesting observation was that eight of the nine plants showing an increase in BaMV coat protein were associated with cell rescue, defense, death, aging, signal transduction, and energy production. Conclusions: This study reports an efficient and straightforward method for the identification of host genes involved in viral infection. We succeeded in establishing a cDNA-AFLP system to help track changes in gene expression patterns in N. benthamiana plants when infected with BaMV. The combination of both DNA-AFLP and VIGS methodologies made it possible to screen a large number of genes and identify those associated with infections of plant viruses. In this report, 9 of the 15 analyzed genes exhibited either a positive or a negative influence on the accumulation of BaMV in N. benthamiana plants

Internet Addiction: A Closer Look at Multidimensional Parenting Practices and Child Mental Health

This study aimed to examine how both psychosocial variables (authoritative, authoritarian, and shaming, and parent-child relationships) and psychological symptoms were associated with Internet addiction, while controlling for the sociodemographic variable (child gender). A national proportionately stratified random sample of 6,233 fourth-grade primary school students in Taiwan participated in the study. Hierarchical regression models were performed to test the research hypotheses. The results show that psychological symptoms, authoritarian parenting, and shaming were positively associated with Internet addiction, whereas authoritative parenting and positive parent-child relationship were negatively associated with Internet addiction. Girls had lower levels of Internet addiction than boys. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the direct effects of child mental health status, multidimensional parenting practices, and family relationship on Internet addiction in children, and the importance of early individual- and family-based prevention and intervention in addressing related public health concerns of Internet addiction in children. The cultural perspectives of parenting and implications of these findings are discussed

Search for Invisible Decays of η\eta and η′\eta^\prime in J/ψ→ϕηJ/\psi \to \phi\eta and ϕη′\phi \eta^\prime

Using a data sample of $58\times 10^6$ $J/\psi$ decays collected with the BES II detector at the BEPC, searches for invisible decays of $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ in $J/\psi$ to $\phi\eta$ and $\phi\eta^\prime$ are performed. The $\phi$ signals, which are reconstructed in $K^+K^-$ final states, are used to tag the $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ decays. No signals are found for the invisible decays of either $\eta$ or $\eta^\prime$, and upper limits at the 90% confidence level are determined to be $1.65 \times 10^{-3}$ for the ratio $\frac{B(\eta\to \text{invisible})}{B(\eta\to\gamma\gamma)}$ and $6.69\times 10^{-2}$ for $\frac{B(\eta^\prime\to \text{invisible})}{B(\eta^\prime\to\gamma\gamma)}$. These are the first searches for $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ decays into invisible final states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; Added references, Corrected typo

Bose-Einstein Condensate in Weak 3d Isotropic Speckle Disorder

The effect of a weak three-dimensional (3d) isotropic laser speckle disorder on various thermodynamic properties of a dilute Bose gas is considered at zero temperature. First, we summarize the derivation of the autocorrelation function of laser speckles in 1d and 2d following the seminal work of Goodman. The goal of this discussion is to show that a Gaussian approximation of this function, proposed in some recent papers, is inconsistent with the general background of laser speckle theory. Then we propose a possible experimental realization for an isotropic 3d laser speckle potential and derive its corresponding autocorrelation function. Using a Fourier transform of that function, we calculate both condensate depletion and sound velocity of a Bose-Einstein condensate as disorder ensemble averages of such a weak laser speckle potential within a perturbative solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. By doing so, we reproduce the expression of the normalfluid density obtained earlier within the treatment of Landau. This physically transparent derivation shows that condensate particles, which are scattered by disorder, form a gas of quasiparticles which is responsible for the normalfluid component

Observation of Two New N* Peaks in J/psi -> ppi−nˉp pi^- \bar n and pˉπ+n\bar p\pi^+n Decays

The $\pi N$ system in decays of $J/\psi\to\bar NN\pi$ is limited to be isospin 1/2 by isospin conservation. This provides a big advantage in studying $N^*\to \pi N$ compared with $\pi N$ and $\gamma N$ experiments which mix isospin 1/2 and 3/2 for the $\pi N$ system. Using 58 million $J/\psi$ decays collected with the Beijing Electron Positron Collider, more than 100 thousand $J/\psi \to p \pi^- \bar n + c.c.$ events are obtained. Besides two well known $N^*$ peaks at 1500 MeV and 1670 MeV, there are two new, clear $N^*$ peaks in the $p\pi$ invariant mass spectrum around 1360 MeV and 2030 MeV. They are the first direct observation of the $N^*(1440)$ peak and a long-sought "missing" $N^*$ peak above 2 GeV in the $\pi N$ invariant mass spectrum. A simple Breit-Wigner fit gives the mass and width for the $N^*(1440)$ peak as $1358\pm 6 \pm 16$ MeV and $179\pm 26\pm 50$ MeV, and for the new $N^*$ peak above 2 GeV as $2068\pm 3^{+15}_{-40}$ MeV and $165\pm 14\pm 40$ MeV, respectively

A System for the Synchronized Recording of Sonomyography, Electromyography and Joint Angle

Ultrasound and electromyography (EMG) are two of the most commonly used diagnostic tools for the assessment of muscles. Recently, many studies reported the simultaneous collection of EMG signals and ultrasound images, which were normally amplified and digitized by different devices. However, there is lack of a systematic method to synchronize them and no study has reported the effects of ultrasound gel to the EMG signal collection during the simultaneous data collection. In this paper, we introduced a new method to synchronize ultrasound B-scan images, EMG signals, joint angles and other related signals (e.g. force and velocity signals) in real-time. The B-mode ultrasound images were simultaneously captured by the PC together with the surface EMG (SEMG) and the joint angle signal. The deformations of the forearm muscles induced by wrist motions were extracted from a sequence of ultrasound images, named as Sonomyography (SMG). Preliminary experiments demonstrated that the proposed method could reliably collect the synchronized ultrasound images, SEMG signals and joint angle signals in real-time. In addition, the effect of ultrasound gel on the SEMG signals when the EMG electrodes were close to the ultrasound probe was studied. It was found that the SEMG signals were not significantly affected by the amount of the ultrasound gel. The system is being used for the study of contractions of various muscles as well as the muscle fatigue

Measurements of the observed cross sections for e+e−→e^+e^-\to exclusive light hadrons containing π0π0\pi^0\pi^0 at s=3.773\sqrt s= 3.773, 3.650 and 3.6648 GeV

By analyzing the data sets of 17.3, 6.5 and 1.0 pb$^{-1}$ taken, respectively, at $\sqrt s= 3.773$, 3.650 and 3.6648 GeV with the BES-II detector at the BEPC collider, we measure the observed cross sections for $e^+e^-\to \pi^+\pi^-\pi^0\pi^0$, $K^+K^-\pi^0\pi^0$, $2(\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0)$, $K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0\pi^0$ and $3(\pi^+\pi^-)\pi^0\pi^0$ at the three energy points. Based on these cross sections we set the upper limits on the observed cross sections and the branching fractions for $\psi(3770)$ decay into these final states at 90% C.L..Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Air fluorescence measurements in the spectral range 300-420 nm using a 28.5 GeV electron beam

Measurements are reported of the yield and spectrum of fluorescence, excited by a 28.5 GeV electron beam, in air at a range of pressures of interest to ultra-high energy cosmic ray detectors. The wavelength range was 300 - 420 nm. System calibration has been performed using Rayleigh scattering of a nitrogen laser beam. In atmospheric pressure dry air at 304 K the yield is 20.8 +/- 1.6 photons per MeV.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to Astroparticle Physic